Fancy getting all kitted out for 31 October and the Halloween madness but refuse to spend a ton of cash? Or perhaps you don’t really have the budget to spend on a fancy costume and don’t want your kids to feel left out? Either way, there are brilliant ways of making cheap and charming Halloween costumes and I’ve gone and found as many as I can.
One idea is to come up with a list of ideas for your child’s Halloween costume – ghost, witch, zombie and so forth – and to then go and find items in your closet to match. While cutting holes into an old sheet may be considered a little passé, what about those black stockings and black shirts you have lying around? Ninjas wear black…
Jessica Quirk is a bloggerwho did exactly this; she came up with ideas for her Halloween costume and then went ahead and made them. There is no way I could ever make a costume as magnificent as her Marie Antoinette one, but if you scroll down and look at her other ideas, you’ll soon be inspired. She has literally taken bits and pieces of old clothes and created magic.
You can do the same with items from your child’s wardrobe and spend only £1 on something like fake blood to really round it off. For example, I wasn’t going to do anything Halloween related last year but decided to take my daughter trick or treating about an hour before it all started. I didn’t have time to go out and buy a costume so I dressed her in her school uniform, dabbed white face paint on her cheeks along with some fake blood, and she went as Dead Schoolgirl. Macabre, yes. Cheap, definitely.
You can also get cheap costumes from charity shops. Children grow out of their costumes so fast and most of the stores are showing their Halloween costume stock in their windows right now. Pop in and see if any of your local branches have some costumes in her size. Or use a costume that can be plundered for pieces to create something else.
A fantastic idea that I was given the other day was to buy an old Halloween costume from a charity shop – any size will do – and then pull out all the sparkle, glitter, and funky fabrics. Stitch these to an old sheet with eyes cut out of it and you’ve got the tatty ghost. It’s such a cute alternative to the old cheap tradition. You could also use these parts to decorate the house for a Halloween party if you like.
Places like Poundland have plenty of Halloween items and extras for, er, a pound. Some of these can be used to augment a costume you are building and at the moment they have a special offer on where you can get six items for £5. And they have enough stuff in there for you to create a pretty perfect Halloween costume for under £5.
So yes, cheap spots like Poundlandare perfect for creating a cheap Halloween costume and most of these items can be stored and saved for next year as well.
Then there is the wonderful web. I discovered a website called Halloween.comand they have a ton of last minute quick costume ideas. Some of my favourites include: carry a quarter and a hammer and go as a quarter pounder (yes, we are British but that is still funny), and dress in black and tie a shot glass around your neck – you’re a shot in the dark. Oh, that IS funny.
The point here is that you can go a little to the left with a costume, have a lot of fun, and get a lot of laughs. These clever twists on standard sayings won’t need you spending a ton of cash at the shops but rather raiding you and your friends cupboards for the items you need. They can be easily adapted to suit the humour and age group of kids too.
Activity Villagehas a bunch of ideas and printable templates you can use to create brilliant costumes for kids. They even have a clever way of creating a permanent mummy costume that involved hot glue and sewing. While not for me, the final product looks amazing.
So there you go, a bunch of ideas that you can totally use for cheap Halloween costumes. Who says you need to spend oodles to have fun and look good? Well, they were wrong.
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